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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29768124">Always And Forever</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/athenswrites/pseuds/athenswrites'>athenswrites</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Established Relationship, F/M, Letters, Memory Loss, heartbroken draco</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 00:42:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,142</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29768124</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/athenswrites/pseuds/athenswrites</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>I should've told you I loved you.</p><p>Always and forever,<br/>Draco</p><p>-</p><p>Hermione loses her memory of Draco after being tortured by Bellatrix. Heartbroken, he writes letters to her, ones he will never send.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy, Luna Lovegood/Theodore Nott, Pansy Parkinson &amp; Blaise Zabini</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>25</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. 1998-04-05</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hi all!</p><p>Starting a new story cause I absolutely hate Salt Air. This story will allude to Salt Air and everything I had planned for it, so spoiler alert hehe. This is not the story I've been planning for a while btw, that one is still very much in the works. I really hope you enjoy this, it's going to be super fun and likely short. I don't see this being too long. Anyway, I love y'all and thanks for supporting me! </p><p>- Athena</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>   Today was the day I found you and lost you all over again.</p><p>   It's been three weeks since you disappeared without a word. You left in the middle of the night with Potter and that speckled ginger idiot to do Merlin knows what.</p><p>   It's been three weeks since you left me.</p><p>   I still remember how it felt when I woke up that morning. Your side of the bed, the right side, was empty, cold. Panic and dread filled me faster than I could even comprehend and exactly three scenarios ran through my head:</p><p>   1. You had woken up early and were in the kitchen fixing breakfast.</p><p>   2. Someone had taken you in the middle of the night along with Potter and Weasley.</p><p>   3. You had left with them.</p><p>   One quick search of my summer cottage and I had crossed out the first option. A simple charm I learned from forensic Aurors tossed the second scenario out the window. So there was one possibility remaining, you had left.</p><p>  The indent of your body in the mattress served as the only memory that, for a night, you were mine and I was yours. It disappeared by mid-noon, and I had nothing left of you again.</p><p>   The next few weeks, Zabini, Parkinson, Lovegood, and Nott helped me search for you. I was so angry, Hermione. Furious at you for leaving me again after everything we've been through. Frustrated at myself for not giving you enough reasons to stay. Bitter at the world for tearing us apart. Still, I spent day and night trying to look for you.</p><p>   I had no idea if you were safe. No idea if you were even alive. But you had taught me hope, Hermione. And I clung onto stupid little hope tighter than I've ever held you before. Three weeks later, I found you clinging to the same ridiculous hope on the floor of the Malfoy Manor. You were unmoving, a pool of already drying blood under your head, and your eyes wide open in shock. I couldn't breathe, couldn't do anything but watch as Lovegood rushed to your side.</p><p>   Salazar, I wouldn't know what to do if we didn't find you when we did. You were two minutes away from losing your grasp on that final thread of life, on the hope that I would find you in time. The last thing you said before slipping into unconsciousness was my name. A shaky and strained "Draco" through your weak smile gave me more than enough hope that you would make it through the next several days of recovery.</p><p>   Three days later, you woke up and took away the very same hope you'd just given me. Potter and Weasley didn't sustain as many injuries as you did, and if you were here, you'd scold me for saying I wished it was them instead of you. According to them, after being subjected to Bellatrix's torture, she had cast a very intricate memory spell on you. One that wiped me, and only me, from your memory.</p><p>   So there I was, sitting at the edge of your bed, sleep-deprived from watching you the past several days, and blinking like a madman when you asked who I was. You had recognized everyone in the room, but me. I lost you again and I <em>just</em> found you. I think the Cruciatus Curse would've hurt less, Granger.</p><p>   I'd rather have you sustain memories of our years at Hogwarts and hate me, than not remember me at all.</p><p>   I should've told you I loved you.</p><p>
  
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<a name="section0002"><h2>2. 1998-04-08</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>    </p><p>   You're doing better today.</p><p class="">   You managed to eat something without throwing it up in the bin I set next to your bed. That was the last time I've been in our bedroom, sorry, <em>your </em>bedroom. We don't share it anymore, I sleep on the couch now. It would be uncomfortable for me to be in there, considering you know nothing about me.</p><p>   You asked who I was a few hours after you woke up, and believe me, I wanted to tell you the truth. To tell you we were so much more than lovers. In fact, if I recall correctly, you were the one who said some cheesy shit about our souls being intertwined. Right now, I'm wondering if you're right about that, but then again, you always were.</p><p>   Instead of telling you who I was and what we were, I grit my teeth and told you I was just a classmate you've never seen around before. Just someone who wanted to help a good cause. You may be wondering why the hell I didn't just tell you the truth, but how could I, Hermione? After all, it was all my fault, wasn't it? If you could, you would debate me on this and maybe even change my mind, but that's just it, <em>you can't. </em></p><p>   Maybe if Bellatrix didn't see us when she was searching your mind that day, then maybe she wouldn't have tortured you to the brink of death—wouldn't have wiped your memories of my existence and leave me with the echoes of us.</p><p>   We're still in the middle of a war, goddamn it.</p><p>   What happens when you get caught again and when your mind is searched for battle secrets, Bellatrix finds your memory has been restored? What happens when she decides she wants to finish what she started? It's a risk I am not willing to take, even if it means <em>we</em> won't happen again. I'd rather watch you from afar than to watch your casket be lowered six feet underground.</p><p>   I spent years, Granger, years trying to fill the gaping void in my chest. No amount of money from my parents, fake friends, and relationships could even begin to satisfy the emptiness I felt. And <em>you</em>, you came barging in like a tornado and within one summer, you had done it for me. It's like you shoved a brand new heart into my chest and gave it a reason to beat. I had just managed to grow used to this range of emotions and just as easily as you had given it to me, you went ahead and tore my new heart right out of my ribcage. Don't ask me to risk losing you again, I cannot do it. I will not do it.</p><p>   And I know that <em>if</em> your memories are one day restored, you'd be furious at me for doing this. I can already see your freckled face, splotchy-red with anger as you prepare to scream something along the lines of "you do not get the right to make that choice for me, Malfoy." But, you're not here to stop me. Not in the way that matters anyway.</p><p><em>   You</em> left <em>me</em>, remember?</p><p>   You made your choice and left both of us with the consequences of it. So here are <em>your</em> consequences, Hermione.</p><p>   Deal with it.</p><p>
  
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